Elementary and high school revenue are up by 3.3 percent nationally from 2013-14 according to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau. That means education spending amounted to $617.6 billion in 2014.
Stephen Wheeler, an analyst in the Economic Reimbursable Surveys Division said: “This is the largest increase in total revenue since 2008 when there was a 4.1 percent increase from the prior year. School system revenue comes from federal, state and local government sources.”
Also included in the U.S. Census Bureau report was the amount of spending on education by the state in 2014. The average spent per pupil nationwide was $11,009, a 2.7 percent increase from 2013. New York spent the most per pupil at $20,610. Utah spent the least per pupil at $6,500.
Per pupil spending includes all of the school system expenditures. That accounts for instruction, support services, and non-instructional services like lunch credits. It also includes staff salaries, employee benefits, student transportation, building maintenance and other services and purchased supplies.
Following New York, the states that spent the most per pupil were the District of the Columbia at $18,485, Alaska at $18,416, New Jersey at $17,907 and Connecticut at $17,745. And after Utah, the states that spent the least per pupil were Idaho at $6,621, Arizona at $7,528, Oklahoma at $7,829 and Mississippi at $8,263.
All nine states in the Northeast region of the U.S. ranked in the top 15 of spending for pupils in 2014. Out of the 20 states with the lowest spending per pupil, 18 were in the South or West regions. 46.7 percent of the total spending revenue came from state governments. All the states contributed a total of $288.6 billion.
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